


All the best things come in twos

by kitkat1003



Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey
Genre: Kruppants Separate AU by angerydj fyi, is good, so buckle up, the boys will show up sometimes but not all th time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:49:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkat1003/pseuds/kitkat1003
Summary: It’s worth it, Captain knows without a doubt.  He’d do anything to see that small, sweet, and sincere smile.





	1. Fury

**Author's Note:**

> i'M TRASH

Captain Underpants regains consciousness just as he hears a fist slam into a wall, the brick crumbling around the indent made, with the villain just jerking his head out of the way.  Krupp is shaking, face blood red and breaths harsh and unforgiving like his stare.  

Here’s the thing; Captain has trained himself to control his super strength in his spare time.  He knows exactly how hard he needs to hit before he breaks a bone, and he knows how much restraint he needs to use in order to simply knock someone out.  He’s learned this from necessity, because he doesn’t ever want to truly hurt anyone.

Benny doesn’t know any of that.  He’s angry and he’s swinging as hard as he can because he wants the villain to pay, regardless of consequence.

The villain is skittering back into a corner with trembling limbs, and Benny _looms_ , just like the bad guy George and Harold had painted him out to be in the beginning.  Evil Mr.Krupp, heartless and cruel and malicious and angry and-

He’s nothing like the Benny Captain _knows_ , and that’s what scares him.

“Benny?”  

Benny stops in his loud steps towards the villain, which is a relief. It’s not the villain’s fault; Captain has to admit he’s been rather sloppy today and there were more battles than he expected, so the thief had gotten a lucky hit and he’d dropped like a bag of rocks.  It wasn’t as if the guy had truly wanted to hurt the one and only Captain Underpants, because unless Benny had been there immediately, the man had had plenty of time to beat up the legendary hero, and had done no such thing.  If the villain wasn’t a thief Captain would pity him more.

“I-I didn’t mean to hurt him, h-he was already banged up I just-,” The thief jumps and stops talking when Benny’s fist slams once more into the wall, more an act of stopping himself from punching the person cowering in front of him than an act of intimidation.  Captain looks over for injuries, and the man has what looks to be a sprained ankle and some bruises, but other than that is no worse for wear, another relief.  He walks over and past Benny’s trembling form, waves at the thief, and promptly knocks him out.

Benny does not stop trembling, hands just barely unclenching and then curling back into tight fists in an almost pulsating motion, like he’s trying to release energy; steam slowly released from a tea kettle about to burst.  Captain cups the man’s face in his hands, stares straight into the anger haze eyes of _his_ Benny, a frown almost tugging his lips down before he manages a smile.

It’s not that Benny is heartless; he cares so darn much that it must be exhausting.  Any action of kindness or goodwill can leave the man startled and flustered beyond belief, but that care goes both ways, leaving his temper on a hair pin trigger, both violent and dangerous with the added weight of superpowers.  

“Benny, I’m okay, don’t worry,” He’s grinning in actual earnest, because how funny is it when it comes to how things of changed?  Two months ago Benny wouldn’t have even allowed Captain to call him Benny, let alone get this close. The haze clouding Benny’s eyes recedes slowly, the harsh red bursting on his face turning back to soft pale skin color, and Benny’s hands start trembling out of exhaustion and the crash after an adrenaline rush rather than fury.  His eyes grow wide, but before he can panic Captain keeps him on task; something to do to stop the freak out.  “Phone, Benny.  We have to call the authorities.”

Large hands fumble with the phone grabbed quickly out of a loose pocket, much to big fingers pressing the much too small buttons with a bit of error before the call runs through. Captain takes the call; Benny doesn’t seem to be up to talking, and he likes talking to police officers.

“Hello?  This Officer Bloom speaking,”

“Hello Officer!” Captain grins widely at the sound of the lady over the phone. She seems nice!  “Just calling to you about a thief me and Benny here happened to stop!  He’s knocked out and ready to be picked up!”  He lists off some of the landmarks he can remember, as well as the street names he had seen during the chase, and the woman promises to send over a cop car. Satisfied, he hangs up and hands the phone back to Benny, who seems to have collected himself.  His face has reverted to the usual grumpy stare, and his arms hang awkwardly at his sides.  They stare at each other for a moment.

“You should train with me!”

The exclamation catches Benny off guard, because he blinks and gives an odd stare.

“We should-what?”

“Train with me!  Learn to fight like I do!  Super strength is tough to handle,” Captain clarifies, bouncing on his toes.  His whole body aches, bruises and cuts littering it from the day’s battles, but that doesn’t matter at the moment; he wants to make Benny happy.  Benny nods after a moment, hints of red on his cheeks.

“That-uh- that’d be nice.  What kinds of training did you have in mind?”  He’s rubbing the back of his neck nervously, and Captain grins.

They walk home with Captain rattling off fighting styles and different techniques he’d learned that he could teach Benny, ignoring the aches in favor of the man with the fake hair looking much more like his sheepish, happy, albeit grumpy self rather than the scary, angry man that had existed prior.

_It’s worth it, Captain knows without a doubt.  He’d do anything to see that small, sweet, and sincere smile._


	2. Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a rule at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. It’s rather easy to follow. Every bully hasn’t ingrained into their brain, passed down to any new face who wants to harm the nerds of the school, or the underclassmen. 
> 
> Don’t touch George Beard or Harold Hutchins.

Krupp doesn’t like to say that he… _likes_ George and Harold.  They’re tolerable now with the distraction of Captain Underpants to keep them off of most pranks.  They still like fooling around, but a part of that is because of their ADHD-Captain got him a book, and he reinstated the arts program, tried to covertly help without making it obvious because he has a _reputation_ -the rest being them being crazy pranksters.  They work hard now though, they try and get good grades and be good students while dealing with the daily hijinks of pranks and supervillains, so if he lets them off a little easy nowadays?  Simply to be fair, considering none of the other students have to deal with such things on top of schoolwork.  Surely he’s justified in cutting them some slack.

There’s absolutely no sense of sympathy when they come to school with bags under their eyes, and there certainly isn’t some sort of oddly prideful feeling in their chest whenever they pull off another silly, harmless prank.  That’s a ridiculous thought.

He’s walking through the halls; the day is slow, no important paperwork or meetings or calls to attend to, so he figures he might as well supervise.  He passes by the art room, and he turns to see the students create.  It’s certainly the most colorful and joyful classroom, that’s for sure.  There’s a smile on every kids face, and in the middle of the chaos is George and Harold, seemingly finishing up a new Captain Underpants comic.

He always gets to look over every issue these days, because they value his opinion for some reason.  The books are…interesting, and a bit humorous, but he certainly does _not_ look forward to every issue that arrives at his office.

He’s staring intently at the boys, to the point that he doesn’t notice the child drawing in the corner that is seemingly frustrated with his own lack of artistic ability.  He doesn’t see the boy growl and throw his pencil to the ground, doesn’t see the boy glare at the smiles of George and Harold, and he doesn’t notice how the boy gets up and walks deliberately towards the duo with clenched fists.

He does notice, however, when the boy grabs the nearly finished comic out of Harold’s hands, and rips it to shreds.

The world slows down.

He watches Harold’s face contort into something near anguish; hours of art destroyed in a matter of seconds.  He watches George’s face turn to anger, justified and hurt because there was no provocation, and now his best friend is hurting and his writing is for nothing.  He watches the bully sneer, not at all remorseful, instead looking pleased with himself.

He thinks; just a year ago he had done the same thing, torn up one of their comics without a second thought, but _now._

Now, his face is burning red, because that kid, that snot-nosed, bitter _brat_ just ruined _his kids’_ comic, his kids who fight crime and gave him a coffee mug that he uses because it’s a gift-he never gets gifts from anyone- and who make school life interesting and who make him _smile_ when he thought he never could, and he is _furious._

**_“MR.WILLSON!”_ **

The entire art room goes silent, conversations halted, children with arms outstretched to grab something now still with wide eyes, held breaths and frozen stares.  George and Harold’s heads snap to meet his eyes; he notes Harold has tears in his eyes, barely held back, and that just serves to make him even angrier.

He stomps over to the bully, the idiot who thought they could get away with messing with his- _Wait, when did he start calling them his kids_ -kids, and the child shivers, trembles, that smirk gone and replaced with fear, and Mr.Krupp revels in the fact that he still inspires fear in children, especially this child.

“My office.  Now,” He growls out, pointing, and the child walks with his head down out of the classroom.

Krupp stomps after him, already planning ways to make Mr.Willson’s school life _miserable._

George and Harold watch, staring at the torn shreds of their comic book once Krupp leaves, left in utter disbelief.

“What just happened?”

“Dude, don’t question it.  We need to buy him another mug or something.”

“We could draw him a comic!”

“Hmm, you got some artist left in you today?”

“You bet!”

The classroom returns to chaos, and George and Harold begin to work.

* * *

Captain Underpants likes taking flights around town.  Having superpowers comes with its perks, most especially the perks of wind on your face as you whisk through the sky, or being able to go anywhere with no traffic in your way, save for the occasional flock of birds.

Right now, he’s searching for his amazing sidekicks.  They’ve been working hard lately, Benny has noticed too, and now they have money for ice cream!  Benny was just the sweetest-he’d given Benny so many kisses as thanks-but all this kindness would go to nothing if he couldn’t find George and Harold! 

He swoops down low as he reaches the schoolyard.  The boys hadn’t been at their treehouse, and there’s nowhere else that Captain can imagine them being besides the school.   

“Back off, jerk!”  He freezes in mid air at the sound George’s voice, eyes scanning the black top below him before he spots his sidekicks.

They’re cornered by a large child near a basketball hoop, Harold holding his arm-is that a bruise or a gash?-and George is standing his ground in front of the bully, one arm arced back to protect Harold. 

While Captain prides himself on his level headedness, he can’t help but feel a tad bit angry.  Okay, so angry might be a little bit of an understatement.  He’s actually quite…steamed.  Furious.  Feeling as if he wants to take the bully and throw him across the basketball court to show him how people who hurt his sidekicks are treated.

He doesn’t do that though, he grips restraint with a shaking iron fist and settles for zooming down in-between the assailant and George.

“Now, now,” His voice sounds darker than it usually is, but he can’t be perfect when he’s battling the urge to do things unbecoming of a hero.  “What sort of villain picks on the sidekicks of the hero?  Seems like a _bad idea_ ,” He stresses the last two words, and the bully balks, turning white as a sheet and running off.  For a moment, Captain ponders running after the boy and giving him…something bad, but he has sidekicks to care for.  “George, Harold, are you boys alright?” He turns to the two boys, and they seem alright, save for Harold’s arm.  Captain holds his hands out to Harold expectantly, and after a moment of trepidation reveals the large scrape on his arm.  George places a hand on Harold’s shoulder, and Captain hisses at the sight of the wound. 

“That looks rough,” He tells them, but gives them a grin, “But nothing ice cream can’t fix!” He shows off the cash, and the two whoop with joy.

They walk instead of flying, because gripping Harold’s arm for flight isn’t possible at the moment.  If the Captain sticks by a little closer, or grasps their hands a little tighter, then they don’t comment.

And if that child, who no one bothers to learn’s name, ends up with months of detention, well, that’s just karma.

* * *

There’s a rule at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School.  It’s rather easy to follow. Every bully hasn’t ingrained into their brain, passed down to any new face who wants to harm the nerds of the school, or the underclassmen.  

_Don’t touch George Beard or Harold Hutchins._

No one quite understands why they are so untouchable.  Rumors are whispered through the halls about the boys who walk into class with bruises and scratches and bags underneath their eyes, the boys who do so many pranks but get so little detention time, they boys who both the hero and the principal seem to care for.  They dance between normalcy and fantasy with each step, each odd grin, each shared inside joke that leaves the world hanging.

They are protected, whether they know it or not, by two very powerful people.

That those people care is what confounds people most of all.

The children ask, the teachers question, confused and wondering for truth.

But for that truth?

Well, the two who know it don’t feel like telling anyone anything.


End file.
